IN A Northern Baronial House 'And Delgaty baith stout an' keen.'-Old Ballad. N the character of Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket Sir Walter Scott has sketched a marked type of the seventeenth century in Scotland. We can trace in actual soldiers of the time one or two of the features. The novelist acknowledges his obligations to Munro and Turner, Colonel Strachan perhaps suggested the county of the Lairdship as well as the surname of the Elias' who had acquired it, and Sir John Hurry-'a robust tall stately fellow with a long cut in his cheek the impartiality with which at a moment's notice Sir Dugald was ready to adopt either side, and his undoubted courage. The name, however, must have been taken from the real Dalgetty (so Saint Serf writes Delgaty) who was also a 'renowned Colonel,' had been bred at the warres,' and was 'a gentleman of invincible resolution.' There the similarity ends, and to carry it further would be unjust to the real historical figure and to Sir Walter, who, in the Legend, makes Montrose speak of my gallant friend Colonel Hay.' Sir William Hay of Delgaty was no impoverished owner of a miserable lairdship in a barren Kincardine moor, but the lord of a stately baronial castle, of broad acres, and a following to suit; he was no rough soldier of fortune, but the constant companion, the devoted friend, and the heroic fellow-sufferer of the cultured and chivalrous Montrose. Sprung from one of the most highspirited of Scottish houses, the gallant Hays,' he was near of succession to his chief, the Lord High Constable of Scotland, and during the Earl of Erroll's minority it was to him that the duty fell of summoning their vassals to the field, and apparently of deciding the policy of at least the northern Hays during the momentous period of 'The Troubles.' The history of the house of Delgaty, so far as it can now be traced, is illustrative of the times and of a phase of Scottish sentiment that has perhaps received less attention than it merits. It discloses a back eddy of the great conflict that the Reformation initiated over northern Europe, and indicates some of the hidden forces that helped to mould events during the Civil Wars. It was long before the Highlands as a whole became Protestant, and a thick veil enshrouds the process by which districts that were practically outside the Presbyterian pale at the Revolution were imbued a century and a half later, even more thoroughly than the Lowlands, with the highest form of Presbyterian ecclesiastical tradition. The process, that must have been gradual in the Highlands in the eighteenth century, had also been a gradual one in the north-eastern Lowlands in the seventeenth, and we have considerable insight into its features from the old Presbytery and Synod books. It combined conviction with compulsion. For long after the establishment of the Presbyterian Kirk by statute, the old faith had powerful adherents in the north-east, and the Catholic lords were strong enough to try a fall with their opponents. On the field of Corrichie the Regent Moray broke for the time the power of the House of Huntly, but thirty-two years later the combined forces of Lord Huntly and Lord Erroll, on the braes of Glenlivat, defeated the large army of Argyll, and in King James's words 'sent him hame some like a subject.' The old ballad of the battle of Balrinnes opens with the reflection: 'The ministers I fear A bluidy browst hae brewn,' and records how amid the array of the northern cavaliers 'Andrew Gray upon ane horse Betwixt the battles rade, The Earl of Erroll who fought at Glenlivat survived till 1631, and is described by Spalding as 'a truly noble man, of a great and courageous spirit, who had great troubles in his time, which he stoutly and honourably still carried, and now in favour died in peace with God and man, and a loyal subject to the king, to the great grief of his kin and friends.' His son only survived him for five years, having lived in so splendid a manner that he was obliged to dispose of his paternal estate of Erroll granted to his family by William the Lyon.' His heir was a minor when the Civil War broke out, and his age, the diminution of the estates, and the concentration of the family interests in the north probably account for the facts that the great name of Erroll scarcely appears in the records of the Troubles, and that the leadership of the Erroll following was assigned to Hay of Delgaty in Aberdeenshire, rather than to Hay of Leys, the oldest cadet, or Hay of Dronlaw the immediate younger branch of Erroll, from which the Hays of Delgaty had in their turn sprung. The Hays of Delgaty had followed their chief in continued adherence to the old faith for long after the Reformation, and were intimately allied with another outstanding Catholic family, the Leslies of Balquhain. Their seat was the grand old castle of Delgaty, near Turriff, which remains one of the finest specimens yet inhabited of the baronial mansion. The notices of the family are scattered and disconnected, but it is possible to trace the generations. Sir Thomas Hay of Erroll, who died in 1406, and was the great-grandfather of the first Earl of Erroll, had married Elizabeth, daughter of John, Lord of the Isles, by Princess Margaret, daughter of Robert II. Their second son, Sir Gilbert of Dronlaw, who appears as witness to a charter by his chief in 1436, was the ancestor of the Hays of Dronlaw, Delgaty in Aberdeenshire, and Park in Galloway. In 1470 Elizabeth of Balhelvy, with consent of Gilbert, Lord Kennedy, her husband, gave sasine of the lands of Ardendraught and Auchleuchries to William Hay, son of Alexander Hay of Dronlaw, her brother. These lands are situated not far from Lord Erroll's castle of Slains in the parish of Cruden in the Buchan district of Aberdeenshire, and the superiority of them at least long remained in the hands of the Hays of Delgaty. In 1492 Johnston of Caskieben and others were ordered to pay a heavy fine to William Hay of Ardendraught for burning the house of Ardendraught in Cruden. On 9th June, 1494, there is an indenture between Gilbert Hay of Delgaty and John Cheyne of Essilmont, while on 1st April, 1497, Alexander Waus, prebendary of Turriff, granted a charter of Kakinche to Gilbert Hay of Delgaty, son and apparent heir of William Hay of Ardendrach. There appear to have been money difficulties, for the bond to Essilmont appears in 1501, in 1503, and 1504; there was a reversion, and a redemption of Delgaty, and it was not till 26th April, 1503, that Gilbert Hay 1 Auchleuchries Charters in Appendix to the Diary of General Patrick Gordon, Spalding Club. was formally returned as heir to William Hay in the lands of Ardendraught and Auchleuchries. In October, 1501, he was a witness to an indenture between the Earl of Erroll and Keith of Inverugie, and to a perambulation of marches between the lands of Fechil and Tibbertay. His chief was, on the 9th of September, 1513, 'slain with King James IV. and 87 gentlemen of his own family name,' on the fatal field of Flodden. Whether the Laird of Delgaty was among the eighty-seven is not known, but he was not likely to fail his chief and king. His name occurs for the last time in 1512, and in 1522 Alexander Hay appears as superior of Auchleuchries. In 1540 Alexander Hay of Delgaty received a charter of Ardendraught from Lord Glamis: on 3rd June, 1546, he is named one of Lord Erroll's referees in a bond' between Lord Huntly and Lord Erroll anent the marriage of John Gordon and Effem Hay,' and in 1548 he was present at the Court of the Vice comitatus of Aberdeen. He is named in charters granted to George, sixth Earl of Erroll, in December, 1541, as fourth in succession to the lands of Erroll, and was married to Janet, daughter of the sixth Lord Forbes, and widow of John, Earl of Atholl. She survived him, and married a third husband, William Leslie of Balquhain, who saved the cathedral of Aberdeen from destruction at the Reformation. Alexander Hay's second son, Thomas, was a Knight of St. John, Secretary to Queen Mary, and Abbot of Glenluce. He obtained part of the Abbey lands at the Reformation and founded the family of Park. In 1556 there is a charter of Ardgeyth to William Hay of Delgaty, in 1579 Alexander Hay of Delgaty paid £1000 as caution that his brother, Father John Hay, should go abroad,' and in 1580 a charter of Ardgrain was given to a William Hay of Delgaty. In 1589 there is a sasine to William Hay of Delgaty, grandson and heir of William Hay of Delgaty and Ardendraught, of the superiority of Auchleuchries. In 1617 Alexander Hay of Delgaty consented to a charter of Auchleuchries, and on 12th April, 1622, he and Dame Isobell Lesley, his spouse, are mentioned in a sasine of the superiority of Auchleuchries. In 1626 Alexander Hay acquired much of the Leslie property that had belonged to his relative the Baron of Balquhain by disposition from him, and in the following year he parted with Fetternear, which had been for so short a time in his possession, to Balquhain's nephew, Abercromby of Westhall. In 1633 Alexander Hay of Delgaty, knight, is mentioned in the Book of the Annualrentaris and Wadsetteris,' and on 9th November, 1634, he granted a charter to his eldest son, William Hay of Delgaty, of Ardendraught, of the fishings of Cruden, and of the superiority of Auchleuchries. This William was the friend and follower of Montrose. Sir Alexander Hay's name is found in connection with more exciting episodes than are commemorated in charters and sasines. The alliance of his family with the house of Forbes, who were the most zealous of the great Reforming families of the north, had existed prior to the Reformation. The Laird of Delgaty's brother, Father John Hay, for whom caution was given in 1579, was a member of the Society of Jesus, and author of a Latin work published at Antwerp in 1605, under the title De Rebus Japonicis, Indicis et Pervanis Epistolae recentiores a Io. Hayo Delgattiensi Scoto Soc. Jesu in librum unum conservatae. On the occasion of the battle of Glenlivat, the Earl of Erroll had mustered his men at Turriff, in the near vicinity of Delgaty, and was doubtless followed to the field by his kinsman. Certain it is that the family, like their relatives the Leslies, adhered to the old church. In 1622 Balfour mentions 'the Laird of Delgatie' as one of the most scandalous and irregular of the adversaries of the Truth,' and in 1625 he was imprisoned in the Castle of Edinburgh and fined because he would not go to the Protestant meetings. The first occasion on which William Hay's name appears with his father's is in connection with an event long remembered in the north. They were among the witnesses summoned to Edinburgh in the investigation into the burning of Frendraught. It was in convoying Frendraught and his friends. home in safety from an attack threatened by Leslie of Pitcaple, that Lord Aboyne and John Gordon of Rothiemay had found their way to the fatal tower, and the cavalcade had passed without sight of Pitcaple by the way.' It would seem that it was thought desirable to account for the proceedings of the Leslies that night, and the Laird of Delgatie and William apparent heir' deponed that that afternoon they supped at Pitcaple, rode on afterwards to Balquhain, slept there, left at nine o'clock next morning, and came to Pitcaple about twelve 1 Spalding Club Miscellany, vol. iii. |